Petro Leader | The subject of Pedro’s first order as president of Colombia was the unexpected role of Bolivar’s sword

“As President of Colombia I ask the Military House to bring Bolívar’s sword. The order of the People’s Order and of this President.”

It was The first order issued by Gustavo Pedro minutes after taking office This Sunday the President of the country already crossed his chest with the tricolor band.

Pedro believed that the sword of liberator Simon Bolivar would accompany him on his way to his investiture and that it would be on stage during the process.

But citing “security reasons,” the now-former president Evan Duke He denied Pedro’s request on Saturday, which clearly did not sit well with the new president and his team.

“We are surprised by the capricious attitude and lack of will of President Duque, given his refusal to give Bolívar’s sword with an ethical law to change the mandate of President-elect Gustavo Pedro,” the coordinator told Efe on Saturday. Communications of the Investment Action, Marisol Rojas.

Pedro’s persuasive and abrupt order this Sunday, which included several minutes of intermission while participants waited in the sun, shows how important this subject is to him.

The memorial came in a glass case, guarded by four soldiers from the Presidential Guard Battalion, dressed in the uniform of the Bolivarian Army since independence, a symbolic gesture of presidential transition in Colombia.

And he stayed by the new Colombian president’s side throughout his speech.

“This sword has so much history, and today it will add one more, about why it took so long to come to this square,” Pedro began his speech with a smile.

“I want her to never be locked up again, never to be locked up again, never to be frozen again, to belong to the people,” the president added.

He also suggested a code of conduct for the following acts of presidential inauguration.

“It is the sword of the people. That’s why we wanted it here, at this time, in this place. Maybe it will become a symbolic ethical act, it will always be with them (the presidents), it will always be a companion. They (the presidents) are Bolívar’s sword of freedom”.

Simon Bolivar, also known as “The Liberator,” was a revolutionary who led the independence of many South American countries, including Colombia. His sword is intertwined in the country’s history.

But the monument played a significant symbolic role for the M-19 guerrillas, in which Pedro was a fighter in his youth.

The January 17, 1974 theft of Bolívar’s sword was the first act of the guerrilla movement since April 19 (M-19), stolen from the Quinta de Bolívar House Museum in downtown Bogotá.

M-19 Years later, in 1991, after they were demobilized after a peace agreement with the Colombian state, the sword became a myth and undoubtedly A symbol of his guerrilla and later political struggle.

With the sword missing, the governments of the day tried endlessly to find it, meanwhile, the M-19 successfully kept it hidden.

There is much speculation as to who owned and maintained it over the years, certainly not all or even most were rebels. Playwrights, poets, and talk that he spent time in Cuba.

Undoubtedly, this Sunday, the sword was back in the limelight.

The presidential inauguration ended as Pedro wanted it to begin: his wife walked behind a guarded sword, hand in hand with him.

Bolivarianism, an ideology polarization

Bolivarism is a school of thought based on the life of Simón Bolívar, a 19th-century revolutionary politician and soldier born in Venezuela.

Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Bolivia were countries that gained independence through Bolivar’s vision and struggle.

And, even though Bolivar lived two centuries ago, the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez dusted off the ideology with his dogmatic Bolivarianism and gave the concept a new dimension.

In recent years, the image of Bolivar and Bolivarianism has been used as a road map by some Latin American left-wing politicians who defend the territorial integration and sovereignty of Latin America without foreign intervention.

It is a controversial concept that has also been used as a polarizing element by its liberal and right-wing opponents.

Indeed, many right-wing representatives in Colombia criticized Pedro’s first order this Sunday asking for Bolívar’s sword.

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